


Feeling I'll Forget, I'm In Love Now

by smithsonianstucky (thelarenttrap)



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Cat, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Recovery, The Martian references, Touch-Starved
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-15
Updated: 2017-06-15
Packaged: 2018-11-14 06:41:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,830
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11202561
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thelarenttrap/pseuds/smithsonianstucky
Summary: Five years after the events in D.C., Steve and Bucky are living in Brooklyn and working through Bucky's last stage of recovery: refamiliarizing himself with touch. At the suggestion of his therapist, they adopt a cat and wonder what changes the pet will make in their lives.





	Feeling I'll Forget, I'm In Love Now

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into Русский available: [и с этим чувством я забываюсь, сейчас я влюблён](https://archiveofourown.org/works/11388750) by [lait_et_le_miel](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lait_et_le_miel/pseuds/lait_et_le_miel)
  * Translation into 中文 available: [Feeling I'll Forget, I'm In Love Now](https://archiveofourown.org/works/12520372) by [ogawaryoko](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ogawaryoko/pseuds/ogawaryoko)



> First off, I want to express my joy at working with [Kat](http://doomcheese.tumblr.com) for this exchange! I absolutely LOVE the art she made and was ecstatic to claim it for my writing!
> 
> Thank you so much to my beta, [tolkhien](http://tolkhien.tumblr.com) for all your hard work! 
> 
> For the record, all information on the Gowanus neighborhood in Brooklyn was found by online research, I've never been to Brooklyn, so sorry for any inaccuracies!

Bucky thinks the worst thing about living in Gowanus might be the smell. This is especially true in early August when the heat melting the pavement is also heating up the polluted water; the river is only a few blocks over and releases the smell across the neighborhood. On the bright side, at least the odor used to be helpful in pulling Bucky from his more intense flashbacks; it’s just that revolting. Bucky despises it more than appreciates it these days though, much preferring to be able to smoke outside without having his nostrils assaulted.

“Buck, please put that out and get back in here,” Steve’s voice calls through the propped open window. The building is so old (it’s a converted factory from Gowanus’s industrial days) that the windows won’t stay open on their own and Bucky has to use a small crate, a thrift store find, to hold it open when he’s on the fire escape.

“You do know I have super soldier lungs, right?”

“It could still be bad for you,” Steve says. They’ve argued this before and it’s always the same conclusion. Bucky stubs out the cigarette and slips back inside the apartment. The smell of the river is cut off as he pulls the crate out of the window frame, the glass rattling as it slides down and hits the sill.

There are only two windows in the living room, the one Bucky has just come in through (which leads onto the fire escape) and one further down the brick wall, but the space is still brightly lit. The huge windows are one of the few advantages to having an industrial apartment in the city. Steve is in the middle of the living room, tidying the sheets on the pull out bed. Bucky, driven by his constant guilt over the matter, joins him to tuck the top sheet under the mattress and fold the entire bed accordion style into the sofa frame. This was supposed to be a temporary solution, not a five year deal.

The antique record player in the corner has a vinyl on it, Sufjan Stevens singing quietly along to their morning routine. Steve heads into the kitchen, away from the windows and into the shadows of the apartment. As Bucky settles onto the sofa, he listens to the clink of Steve’s favorite ceramic mug cutting into Sufjan’s voice. “Do you want anything?” Steve asks, throwing his voice over his shoulder to reach Bucky who has slid off the couch and onto the floor, shielded. The rug beneath him is one of the only items purchased new for their hastily assembled apartment. It is fluffy, arguably too much, but Steve had said that if Bucky was going to prefer sitting on the floor he needed something comfortable to sit on.

“Herbal tea is fine,” Bucky calls back to Steve. Caffeine makes him too jittery sometimes, hence the chain smoking to calm his nerves. And he rather likes the burn of a hot cigarette.

He carefully listens to the noises of Steve making their drinks, undoubtedly making himself coffee with the second hand french press. Sufjan keeps singing and Bucky thinks about how seemingly perfect this is, how put together their lives seem in these calm moments. If only the past and future could speak to these moments, to tell the truth. Steve’s feet shuffle across the floor and Bucky stiffens as Steve comes closer and hands him a mug. Bucky knows Steve won’t try to touch him, would never purposefully force contact on him, but he can’t help the knee jerk reaction. It may have been years since he has experienced the kind of pain and abuse that was once like clockwork, but the fear it is still ingrained in Bucky.

Steve sets his coffee cup down on the end table but doesn’t sit. First, he has to go the window and check the latch, jostling it to make _sure_ it is secure. In the same way that Bucky passively protects himself on the floor--surrounded by furniture or wall on three sides, out of sight of a gun’s scope on a neighboring rooftop--Steve actively protects himself with security measures. They are both coping how they can.

When Steve finally settles onto the sofa, he sits close to Bucky. There is a tensioned space residing between Bucky’s shoulder and Steve’s legs. “Are you going to your appointment today?” Steve asks quietly as he reaches for the television remote.

“Well, did you want to sleep on the sofa bed the rest of your life?” Bucky asks him with a sarcastic bite.

Steve is unfazed by Bucky’s mood, he has seen it enough. He carries on normally. “So you are going to ask her about solutions for…”

“My extreme aversion to physical contact?” Bucky asks. He shifts his weight towards the walls, further from Steve. “Yup.” _Maybe._

“Do you want me to drive you today?”

Bucky thinks about it. Steve had only sat in on his first ever appointment with his therapist, when he had barely associated with another person and didn’t trust himself alone in the small office. But now, Steve only drives him when he feels too anxious to do so himself (Steve had never asked how he had a driver’s license and Bucky hoped he never would). Public transport was out of the question for Bucky, most likely forever if he was going to be honest with himself.

“Yeah,” Bucky decides. “That’d be nice.”

 

It’s in the car on the way home that Bucky next speaks.

“She thinks…an animal could help.”

“Like a therapy dog?” Steve asks, not missing a beat.

“No, not necessarily anyone trained,” Bucky says, “just something to touch that is alive but not a person.” They sit in silence while they wait for the light to turn green. They are surprisingly the only car at the intersection. Just one pedestrian crosses in front of them, a middle aged woman with two small dogs on green leashes. When the light changes and Steve presses the accelerator, Bucky parts his lips again. “Animals never did me wrong. I don’t have any strong associations with them, so she thinks it could help.”

“Well that’s great!”

“Yeah…I guess.” This time, there is a pause as the car moves and Bucky speaks when it stops at the next light. “I’m just not sure.”

That night, they sit in the living room together. Steve has the television on, but turned low; he can follow the game show without listening to Steve Harvey talk. Bucky is on the floor, per usual, with _The Martian_ propped open in his lap.

“Didn’t you read that like…six months ago?” Steve asks.

Bucky takes a moment to answer, too absorbed in the pages. “Um, yeah. But I really liked it so I wanted to read it again.”

“Do you know how many books there are on the shelf in the bedroom?” It’s rhetorical as Bucky buys them all off Amazon Prime himself, but Steve likes to bring up this difference between them: Bucky is a rereader and Steve _definitely_ isn’t.

“There’s fifty two.” Bucky answers anyway, because he likes to admit he knows the exact count.

“And all science fiction.”

“No, there are a few historical.”

“Any from our time?”

“One.”

They fall silent as the commercial cuts back to _Family Feud_ and Steve’s attention returns to the television. Bucky reabsorbs Mark Watney’s stranded state on Mars; Bucky loves Watney and thinks he could read this book one hundred times. Watney’s sarcasm is what gets him, the humor-filled drive of the man who could have given up. Bucky likes to think that even if Watney is cranky most of the time, that his humor is what saves the character. Bucky thinks he, himself, should perhaps be funnier.

Steve only speaks again when the show cuts to the next commercial break. “The books, the historical ones...do they ever remind you of the war?”

Bucky folds the corner of the page over so he doesn’t lose his spot as he turns to look at Steve above and behind his shoulder. “Can’t remember much of it, if I am going to be honest.”

“Oh. What about...what about us? Do you remember us from the war at all? Or before?”

“Yeah, you were tiny and a pain in the ass.” Maybe Bucky _can_ have humor like Watney.

“No, like…us as in you and me…the package deal.”

“Oh, you mean like the fact that we were fucking?”

Steve sighs long and hard out his nose. Bucky refers to their past relationship like this mostly because it’s how he had said it the first time they ever discussed this and it pisses Steve off to no end. It’s plain and simple fun now.

“Sure, however you want to refer to it,” Steve says.

“What about it?”

“Well…we were cuddlers. Both you and me.”

Bucky waits a beat. “This is about earlier, isn’t it?”

“Only a little bit. Sometimes I just need to make sure I’m not the only one from the 40’s anymore.”

“Steve, I regained my memories. I’m never letting them go again.”

“I know. But you just feel so far away sometimes.” Bucky thinks about this. _Physically or mentally?_ he wants to ask, but he doesn’t respond.

 

“See, that’s why!” Bucky exclaims. He isn’t angry so much as simply frustrated.

“I’d love to be able to hug and stuff,” Steve says as he takes a step back. They’re between the sink and the kitchen island and Bucky is feeling very claustrophobic about Steve’s proximity right now. “But I don’t want you to force yourself to do anything you’re not comfortable with.”

“I gotta push the boundaries if I am ever going to change them.” This was why he had told Steve to approach him, although it had been kind of stupid to pursue this in the confined space of the apartment kitchen.

“But do you want to put yourself through that kind of stress?”

“Everything is stressful as is. Plus it’s hard to live with yourself when you can’t meet the basic concepts for having humanity.”

There is a silence that follows Bucky’s words. “Buck, you’re human.”

“I know that,” Bucky says quickly. He takes a breath before continuing more calmly. “Just doesn’t always feel like it.” His following thought, for the first time in almost eighty years, is that he could use a hug right now.

“Let’s make a pros and cons chart.” Steve is in the kitchen, opening the drawer and fetching a piece of scrap paper and pen from the clutter. Bucky calls this drawer “the junk drawer”.

“Is this a business inquiry now?”

“If the business is your mental health.” Steve moves into the living room and settles beside Bucky on the floor with his back against the sofa.

“Ugh, never mind. Let’s never refer to it like that again.”

“So, should we start with the good or the bad?”

“Probably better to end on a high note,” Bucky says.

Steve writes “cons” on the right side of the T-chart. He follows it up by writing “stress”. Then he looks at Bucky.

“Failure,” Bucky provides. Steve writes it in his scratchy handwriting. “Regression, I should say,” Bucky amends. His therapist has been very insistent that there is never failure, just regression that can be reclaimed.

Steve makes the proper change to the list. “What about the animal?”

“It’ll have to be a cat,” Bucky says. “The apartment is too small for a dog.”

“Okay, what about the cat?”

“I guess it will be stressful for the cat too.”

Steve writes, followed by silence.

“Is that it for the cons?” he finally asks.

“Steve?” Bucky’s voice is small.

“Yeah?”

Bucky shuffles in his seat. “What if I hurt the cat?”

“You won’t, Buck,” Steve says immediately, “I know you won’t.”

 

“Hi, we are here to meet some cats.” Steve says to the women at the desk while Bucky stands back, foregoing social interaction by studying the painted pawprints on the wall. It seems that each one is labeled with donor names.

“Awesome!” the woman replies, all smiles and perkiness. “I just need you both to sign in here and then you can head back!”

Bucky moves towards the desk before Steve even looks his way. Steve honestly should have known he was paying attention, when has Bucky ever not been diligently taking in details?

“Okay, the cats are through the yellow door on your left,” the women tells them after Bucky has signed. She motions down the hallway behind her. “There is a volunteer in there to answer any questions you may have!” Bucky thinks her smile temporarily blinds him.

The yellow door is not far and Steve goes first, holding it open behind him for Bucky to push through too. Inside the room, the walls are lined with metal cages and soft meows bounce from between the bars.

“Welcome to the shelter,” another woman greets them. She is significantly more subdued than the woman at the desk and Bucky is thankful. Her name tag says that she is named Sherry. “Do you have any ideas of who you are looking for today?”

Bucky listens as Steve responds, but Bucky is drifting towards the cages instead of engaging in the conversation. The first cat he lays his eyes on is a small gray and white one. It has tucked itself beneath the blanket in the cage. He wonders if it is cold or scared. Bucky realizes, looking at the caged animals, that he _feels_ for them, and suddenly he really looks along the wall, at these cats living in cages that aren’t horrible, but aren’t large by any means. His brain flashes to cryotanks and imprisoning only intercut by torture to break him. It isn’t a true flashback, not like he used to have, but his skin feels cold and a full body shiver travels his body.

These cats are being taken care of, but he can’t help but hate the reaction he is having.

“...any cats that are especially gentle maybe..” Steve is saying, but Bucky has his own idea.

“Who has been here the longest?”

Steve seems surprised that Bucky has spoken, but he doesn’t really blame him. Bucky is surprising himself too by being forward, but he needs to know.

“Well I’d say it’s probably Houston over here,” Sherry says, leading the way to a cage closer to the back of the room. “He has been waiting a couple years for a family.”

“Why do you think he has been here so long?” Steve asks, peering into the cage she has indicated.

“Well,” Sherry says, sounding hesitant, “he’s just not the friendliest….I suppose you could say that he doesn’t hate or love people. Just a little grumpy, and a little indifferent.”

Bucky scoots as close as he dares to Steve’s side and looks at Houston too. He is an orange tabby, his fur a little rumpled, like he slept with it smashed between his body weight and the floor. He is large, not like the personification of a cartoon tomcat, but larger than the average cat in the room. Houston’s large head lifts from his nap to watch them, eyes bright green and curious.

“How did he end up here?” Bucky asks. Steve shuffles to the side so Bucky can be closer to the cage.

“He was found as a stray, brought in by a single mom who had caught him with a slice of lunch meat in the alley by her apartment.”

“Can we meet him?” Steve asks, recognizing how interested Bucky is. The fact that he is actually talking with Sherry really proves it.

“Yes, of course. I’ll warn you that he doesn’t especially like to be held, so I’d recommend you just pet him in his cage. He has only just met you.” Steve and Bucky nod their understanding. Bucky can definitely relate.

Sherry opens the latch on the cage and Houston stands as he realizes that something is happening. Steve makes the first move, Bucky obviously moving to invite him to do so. He’s still not sure about this whole thing, but he’s hoping.

“Hey bud,” Steve says softly, offering his hand for Houston to sniff. He does so, then sits back and looks at Steve with bright eyes, head upturned to gaze right at him. “It’s like he wants something from me,” Steve says.

“Probably food,” Sherry says from beside Steve. “Sometimes I think the only reason he puts up with us is because we provide the food.”

“Bucky, do you want to meet Houston?” Steve asks.

“In a minute,” Bucky says and Steve knows him well enough to know he needs to observe longer, to watch Steve interact more with Houston before he feels okay with his hand being in the cage.

Steve offers his hand to Houston again and this time Houston just stares at it expectantly. “Are we already that acquainted?” Steve asks him. When he moves his hand to pet Houston’s head, he sits still and allows the action.

“Hey Houston,” Bucky tries, feeling more confident. Maybe he can do this, maybe he can pet Houston today.

“I honestly don’t think he knows his name,” Sherry tells them. “He never really seems to respond to it so you could definitely change it.”

“What were you called before?” Steve asks the cat as he moves to the side, allowing Bucky to reach into the cage too. They swap places, and Bucky extends his flesh hand to allow Houston to sniff it. Bucky flinches when whiskers brush his fingers, just tiny wisps of contact. Then Houston presses his cold nose into Bucky’s hand and it takes everything in him to hold it still, to not retract it faster than any of their eyes will be able to see.

“Good job,” Steve says. For all Sherry knows, the words are for antisocial Houston but Bucky knows they are for him.

“I think he likes you guys because you’re going so slow. A patient household is what he needs,” Sherry tells them.

“Oh boy, does our house have the patience,” Steve says. Bucky smiles. “What do you think, Buck?”

Bucky hums his response, an affirmative sound. Houston is allowing him to gently stroke one ear with his fingers, light contact. Bucky can handle this, this will work. Bucky _can do this_.

“Houston, do you want a home?” Sherry asks. Houston does not respond. “See, I really don’t think he knows his name.”

 

Houston comes home with them two days later, after the apartment has gained cat food, bowls, a climbing tree, toys, and a litter box. He also comes home with the assumption he will be given a new name for this new chapter of his life.

“Do you think he is scared?” Bucky asks, looking at the carrier in the backseat.

Steve is driving, eyes on the road. “Does he look scared?”

“He looks like he always does.”

“Vaguely disgruntled and immune to the world?”

“Yup.” Bucky loves it.

“I think he will settle in well,” Steve thinks out loud. “I don’t think anything can faze him.”

Bucky hopes not as he doubts it will be helpful for him to have a cat that lives under the bed.

After they park, Steve brings the carrier up to the apartment and Bucky gets the doors, excited but scared to welcome home the new family member.

“Do you know what you’re going to call him?” Steve asks as he heads for the bedroom. They agreed that he should start in there, where the space is more enclosed. This will be for the first day, and then he will be released into the rest of the apartment. They don’t want to overwhelm him, and keeping a new cat in just one room at first was highly suggested in the pamphlets the shelter gave them.

“Still thinking, but I have an idea,” Bucky says. Steve glances over his shoulder at Bucky, wondering, but Bucky gives no hints.

Steve sets the carrier down as Bucky closes the door behind them. The room has been somewhat renovated for the cat; there is a scratching post in the corner, and under the desk is a new litter box. A set of food bowls are by the closet and a few small mouse toys and jingle balls are scattered across the floor.

“Ready?” Steve asks, hand on the latch. Bucky sits on the bed, drawing his knees to his chest.

“Okay.” It’s the first time the cat will be loose around him. He isn’t scared, just apprehensive.

Steve opens the carrier and the cat slowly pads out. The wood floors in the apartment are red tones and he nearly matches, blending into their home like he belongs.

“He’s beautiful,” Bucky says, watching as the cat sniffs the floor and then the edge of the bed closest to him. Bucky is craning forwards to keep him in view.

“Hopefully he likes everything.” Just as Steve says it, the cat moves towards the scratching post. He sniffs it, curious, and then rubs his side on it.

“I think we are doing okay so far,” Bucky says.

They stay in the room with the cat for another half hour before leaving him to investigate on his own, without being watched by near strangers. Bucky thinks that must be beyond stressful.

“So...the name?” Steve asks as they settle into the living room. Bucky can tell it’s killing him not to know.

“I’m not saying anything yet,” Bucky responds as he picks up _The Martian_ and settles on the floor with his back against the sofa.

“Do you want a pillow?” Steve asks, eyeing what he considers an uncomfortable spot to sit.

Bucky shakes his head.

 

Overnight, Bucky is in the room with the cat. It unnerves him and his sleep is sparse. He can’t help but think about what he would do if the cat jumped on the bed and tried to sleep near him. It’s silly, he logically _knows_ the cat would not cause him any harm, but the irrational part of his mind is ready to sound warning sirens if he so much as feels the cat looking at the bed.

The worry is unfounded however, as the green eyes watch him from the armchair in the corner, a hand-me-down from Avengers Tower after Tony’s most recent renovation. Bucky doesn’t close his eyes until the cat has too. They sleep in mock comfort.

 

In the morning, Bucky leaves the door to the bedroom open and the cat sees the rest of the apartment for the first time. The cat seems cautious, sniffing to investigate every item and surface.

“Guess that’s going to keep him occupied,” Steve says as he watches the cat over the top of his laptop. Steve is at the table, the cat across the apartment by the front door.

“He doesn’t care much about us,” Bucky says as he makes his morning tea.

“I think he’s just distracted right now.”

This is false, they quickly learn. Even though the cat isn’t against people, he is definitely not the friendliest and even a bit cranky. He does not appreciate when Bucky fills his food bowl and shakes it to get the cat’s attention, meowing reproachfully like shaking the bowl is personally offensive to him.

“Sorry, bud,” Bucky apologizes. As soon as the cat realizes what is in the bowl however, he pads over and plops his haunches to the floor to eat. Bucky shrugs.

The reproachful meows continue. Steve gets told off for cheering for the baseball players on TV _and_ for trying to pet the cat. Bucky gets reprimanded for scooting a dining chair back quickly and the chair legs making a sharp noise.

“Maybe _this_ is why he was at the shelter for so long,” Steve jokes, holding out his hand for the cat to sniff. This time, Steve is found more acceptable and the cat pushes his head into Steve’s palm.

“All his crankiness is why I want to name him Watney,” Bucky says.

“Watney?”

“After Mark Watney in _The Martian_. Cause he is cranky and talks a lot.”

Steve laughs. “Okay, he’ll be Watney then.”

There is a minute of silence as Steve pets Watney.

“Do you like the name Watney?” he asks the cat. He gets meowed at. “At least it’s not Mark you chose. That’s too human for me.”

Now, Bucky laughs.

 

Watney gets slightly quieter as he settles in, but is still a loud cat. Slowly, the meows become demands instead of complaints; meows for food, meows for doors, meows for wanting the window opened. Bucky is still taking time to warm up to letting Watney sit on his lap, but has pet him. The first time was nerve wracking. His hand had even shaken. But Watney’s soft fur, despite the slightly disheveled look of his flaming pelt, was warm and so different from contact with a person that it was fine.

His therapist asks regularly about how he is getting on with Watney and one week he realizes: Watney likes Steve more. This doesn’t bother Bucky as much as he thinks it should. Watney was, after all, supposed to help him. However, Watney has quickly become more Steve’s cat than Bucky’s.

“I think they have taken to one another because they are both receptive to touch when I’m not,” Bucky tells her. “Like, Watney defaults to Steve for attention because he knows I won’t give it to him sometimes. He isn’t satisfied with just being talked to, which is what I try if I can’t get it together.”

When Bucky and Steve head home that day, Bucky pays close attention to how Steve interacts with Watney. Indeed, Bucky’s observation holds true now that he is paying specific attention; Watney goes to Steve for attention first, then finds Bucky only if Steve is thoroughly unavailable (aka behind a closed door or asleep). Even if a door is closed, Watney persists with demanding meows for a few minutes first.

Sometimes, Bucky gets overwhelmed by Watney’s presence, and then he takes to the fire escape. He has been smoking almost twice as much lately, using it as a retreat from the interior. Steve is obviously bothered by this, what with his long glances towards the window while Bucky is outside and disapproving looks when Bucky leaves for the corner store to pick up more American Spirits. Bucky thinks that Steve needs to get over it because _of course_ things were going to get worse before they got better: that’s the rhythm of Bucky’s life; to get out of a war, he first had to become the Winter Soldier. Fate couldn’t just _let_ him have an easy exit. That’s never in the plan for Bucky.

But Bucky doesn’t consider himself partially (and sometimes even mostly) recovered for nothing. He knows how to persist and he knows how to push through discomfort. It’s a learned skill from the Winter Soldier, but he tries not to think about that whenever he is tapping into his perseverant reserves. Watney has been home for two weeks when Bucky plops himself onto the rug in the living room, across from Watney lounging in a patch of sunlight, and produces a few high pitched, endearing noises to draw Watney to him.

The apartment is silent since Steve is out at a meeting at the tower and Watney perks up instantly. His big eyes open and focus on Bucky. Unsure what Watney sees, how exactly he is presenting himself on the other side of the rug, Bucky’s nerves fire up. But he just breathes deeply through his nose and waits to see what Watney is going to do, hoping this plan is going to work.

Watney peels his orange body off the rug and lets out a loud chirp, heading for Bucky. He holds out his hand, to greet the cat, but Watney plows on and headbutts right into Bucky’s knee. Too late, Bucky thinks it would be a better idea to be wearing long pants: Watney’s ticklish fur is making his hair stand on end, a shiver shimmying its way up his spine. Bucky swallows hard and forces himself to relax. It will be _fine_.

 

“Bucky? I’m home,” Steve says as he comes through the door. “Turns out, they don’t need me for the mission now that we reworked the plan so--”

“Hey,” Bucky says quietly. He is sitting ramrod straight on the rug, Watney sleeping curled tightly in the shape of his crossed legs.

“Hell,” Steve says, a wide smile spreading across his face like ink on paper. “How’d this happen?”

Bucky is silent for a moment. “Perseverance.”

Steve shakes his head fondly.

Once the positive changes start, they don’t seem to stop. A force violating physics, it never runs out of energy. The wildest thing is that _Steve_ is changing too. Bucky doesn’t know if he was just focused on himself or remembering wrong, but suddenly Steve seems more _Steve_ than ever before.

“When did you become a hummer?” Bucky asks Steve as he busies himself with the dishes in the sink.

“I’ve always hummed,” Steve responds as he takes a bowl from Bucky and begins drying it.

“Bullshit,” Bucky says. “You didn’t hum before the war.”

Steve smiles. “And you’d remember?”

Bucky fakes offense. “Low blow, Rogers.”

Steve keeps surprising Bucky as they fall into new patterns. Life floods into their home, like someone has ripped the planks off a boarded up house, letting sunshine fall through the slats. Steve begins to bring home more music and the apartment fills with decades of records: Toto, Van Halen, The Fratellis, The Rolling Stones, Adele, Maroon 5, NSYNC; whatever he can get his hands on. While Watney sits with his eyes slitted in the sunlight, Bucky and Steve move about the house. There is more activity than ever before as they get off the sofa, rise off the rug, and have _activity_. Despite no effort to do so, the dust feels cleared and the air cleaner. Life is brighter.

Bucky reads a little less and leaves the apartment a little more. The grocery store is slightly less daunting when the brush of a stranger in the checkout line doesn’t lead to anxiety for days. Steve pulls Bucky to an antique shop down the street and a new hobby is sparked: interior design.

Bucky can’t remember the last time he saw Steve draw, but suddenly Steve is funneling his creative fuel into the gas tank of their apartment’s aesthetic. He buys an electric sander and Bucky watches as he sands down and paints the tv stand, the sideboard, the nightstands in the bedroom. Sitting with his feet tucked on the couch, window open, Bucky doesn’t think he has ever seen Steve so lively.

At night, Watney weaves around their feet as they brush their teeth side-by-side, elbows almost touching. Bucky trips on the cat’s feather duster tail, swearing and stumbling. Out of instinct, Steve grabs Bucky’s bicep to steady him.

Watney meows, insisting for something.

They freeze as Watney sounds again. Bucky’s eyes meet Steve’s. A pause.

“I’m sorry,” Steve hurries, hand disappearing from Bucky’s skin. This isn’t a first, but it has never ended well before. Bucky is still silent.

“Are you okay?” Steve says.

“I didn’t--I didn’t care.”

“What?”

“Steve, I didn’t mind.”

Hesitantly, Bucky raises his flesh hand towards Steve. Zeroing in on his target, a sniper at heart, Bucky focuses on the indent in Steve’s chest where his sternum lies. Slowly, Bucky’s fingertips touch Steve’s chest, then more and more of his hand until his palm lies flat against Steve’s beating heart.

Beneath his hand, Steve shudders. “Buck.”

“I got this.”

There is a long, pregnant pause. Watney is silent too.

“Okay?” Steve asks. The tone of his voice makes Bucky look up. He hadn’t even realized he has been staring at the floor, at the patch of rug between their feet beside the vanity. Steve’s eyes are earnest, swimming pools Bucky could dive into and never return.

“Yeah,” Bucky says. “More than.”

 

The next morning, Bucky gets up after Steve. When he leaves the bedroom, the other soldier is sitting in one of the dining chairs, pulled over by the windows, as he sips his coffee. His back is to Bucky, absorbed in the world viewed through the glass pane.

Bucky slips up behind him. Steve is not aware that Bucky is awake until he is less than a foot behind him.

“Buck, you scared--”

Bucky leans down and slips his arms around Steve’s shoulders. He presses his face into Steve’s neck and breathes in the soft smell of Steve in the morning.

They freeze, scared and intertwined, comforted and nervous.

“Go big or go home?” Steve asks.

“That was more or less the thought.” Bucky withdraws. He feels shaky, but he is happy.

 

The afternoon finds them sitting on the living room rug together, Watney between them, playing classic games on a PlayStation Steve found in a resale shop in Dumbo. The only cartridges they have are Spyro and an ATV racing game, but they are having fun all the same. The funniest part is when Watney sees small movement on the screen and begins to hunt, stalking the television and then pouncing to whack at it with his paw.

“You can’t catch the ATV,” Steve tells Watney, leaning forwards to scoop him up. The cat meows reproachfully as Steve sets him back on the rug between them. When Watney headbutts Bucky’s elbow for attention, he takes his metal hand off the controller and lets the ATV drive into the ditch to scratch Watney’s ear.

 

Saturday morning they are in the kitchen, the windows open to let in fresh air, as they fry hash browns from a freezer bag and flip pancakes.

“Chocolate chips?” Steve asks.

“Sure.” Chocolate was a rarity during the depression and war, and Bucky now has a resulting sweet tooth the size of Texas. At least he can’t get a cavity from it anymore.

Steve squeezes between Bucky at the stove and the kitchen island to reach the cabinet where the bag of chocolate chips resides. Bucky’s nostrils flare, a knee jerk reaction, but he does not feel the expected spike of anxiety just below his sternum.

“Okay?” Steve asks, still sensing something in the air. Or perhaps he has just been conditioned to recognize these moments as well.

“Fine,” Bucky says, surprised when his voice doesn’t come out strained.

Steve settles back into his spot beside Bucky at the stove. He takes a small handful of chocolate chips and drops them one-by-one into the cooking pancake.

“So,” Steve starts. Bucky swallows. “Do you think...you’re ready for anything more?”

Bucky waits until Steve finishes with the chocolate chips and gently removes the bag from his hand, fingers brushing, and sets it aside. Their fingers curl together, interlacing, as Bucky turns to face Steve, ignoring the hash browns.

“Think so,” he says. Steve cocks an eyebrow.

 

They start small, just the brush of hands and shoulders pressed together on the sofa. As Steve visits more and more resale shops, interior design and DIY somehow becoming a part of his everyday life, Bucky begins to tag along. They shuffle down the piled aisles together, hand-in-hand, to eye the antique furniture. Their eye for the past, for authenticity, makes finding treasures easy. Bit-by-bit, the apartment shapes up. It goes from a halfway house to a home.

The record player has moved, and now has its own table beneath the window. More vinyls than before line the shelf below the tabletop, a growing collection that stays on repeat throughout their days. Watney sometimes paws at the circling vinyls, curious, and Bucky has taken to making a small noise of disapproval. Watney obeys, if somewhat reproachfully.

Watney and Bucky are getting closer now too, the cat pawing at Bucky to make him remove his hands from his lap so that Watney can settle in their place. Petting Watney has become more regular, an instinctual motion when there is a cat in Bucky’s lap. He runs his fingers, metal and flesh, through Watney’s thick fur. It is relaxing. All the contact has also caused Bucky to realize something important: cats run a warmer body temperature than people.

“What’re you doing?” Steve asks, fondness saturating his words. In the time he left the sofa to go to the bathroom and come back, Bucky sprawled himself across the whole thing, head on the new pillows, and Watney pulled against his chest. _21 Jump Street_ is paused on the television.

“Getting comfy,” Bucky says. Wantey meows.

Steve rolls his eyes in exaggerated exasperation. Bucky pulls Watney closer to his chest, where he radiates warmth into Bucky’s perpetually cold bones. Steve sits in the armchair and takes the remote from the coffee table with him, hitting play as he sits. They watch in silence for a few minutes, the jokes at this point of the movie not having them in stitches like earlier. Then Steve, bored, stops paying attention and starts communicating with Watney.

“What are you doing?” Bucky asks. Steve doesn’t answer as he raises his eyebrows, making eye contact with Watney. No one is paying attention to the movie anymore. Watney shuffles his feet, moving them under his haunches as if to prepare for jumping. “Don’t you dare.” Bucky isn’t sure if he is addressing Watney or Steve.

He fake pouts when Watney wiggles free of his arms to pad across the sofa arm and end table to join Steve. “He abandoned me!”

Steve strokes Watney from head to tail twice and then points to Bucky. “Go back,” he tells the cat. Watney obliges, much to their amusement, and wanders back to Bucky, eyes happily slitted. As he settles down in the same spot against Bucky’s chest, he meows reproachfully, as if realizing he is being teased.

“Wait, why is Channing Tatum shirtless?” Bucky asks, glancing back to the televison.

Steve’s eyes flick back to the TV. “Shit, we should rewind.”

 

Gowanus seems like even more of a curse now that Bucky’s nostrils aren’t filled with the smell of smoke when he is on the fire escape. Courtesy of Steve’s nagging, he has quite smoking for the most part. It was a habitual thing after all, since his bastardized metabolism won’t allow him to become addicted to the nicotine.

So, now Bucky can’t focus for shit on the words of his dime novel. Colonizing a planet in a foreign solar system is a story impossible to absorb when all he can smell is the water pollution.

He slides the few steps down to the level of the window and ducks his head to go inside. _Whack_. His forehead smacks into the window frame and the glass rattles.

“Fuck,” Bucky says, pressing a hand to the bump surely forming on his cranium. He carefully maneuvers the rest of his bulk inside, turning his shoulders askew to fit them through the frame.

Inside, Watney lazily watches him from a sun patch on the kitchen floor. The look of total unconcern on his face makes Bucky feel _so_ loved.

“Thanks, bud.” Bucky walks to the freezer, wanting an ice pack to put on his head. He knows his super soldier DNA will take care of it, but it would also ease the immediate pain and headache he is experiencing.

When he opens the freezer, an avalanche of precariously stored food falls out. “You’ve got to be kidding me,” Bucky moans. He stoops to begin gathering the frozen foods on the floor; bags of frozen hash browns, frozen berries for Steve’s workout smoothies, two pizzas, a Costco sized package of Hot Pockets. They eat _very_ healthy.

Bucky ends up cross legged in front of the freezer, digging through with his metal hand to find the ice packs. He had searched so long with both hands that the flesh one had gone numb. It was now tucked between his knees to regain some warmth. Finally, he finds one and holds back another landslide of frozen foods as he pulls it from the freezer.

Kicking the door shut with a socked foot seems sufficient and then, sitting on the floor, he reclines against the center island, ice pack to his head. Watney meows reproachfully and peeks around the side of the counter at him, wondering.

“Not my day,” Bucky tells the cat. Watney just stares, hair askew and eyes big.

Bucky has been sitting for just ten minutes, eyes closed and head reclined to rest against the cabinets, when the lock sounds and Steve calls a soft hello. Watney meows his reply and Bucky realizes the cat is sitting right beside him, front feet tucked under his body as he keeps Bucky company.

“Where are you guys?” Steve asks.

“Kitchen floor,” Bucky says. Footsteps sound and Steve’s feet come into view around the island. Bucky’s eyes pan up to see his expression. It’s confusion and amusement.

“This is a new one,” Steve says. “There isn’t even a rug in here.” He looks between the floor and Bucky, as if deciding something. Then he offers a hand to Bucky to pull him to his feet, instead of seating himself on the floor beside him. Bucky grips Steve’s hand and is brought to his feet. Watney stands too and pads off towards the dining table.

“What’s the ice pack for?” Steve asks. If Bucky is honest, his head doesn’t even hurt anymore, so he sets it on the counter.

“Hit my head. Suffered a freezer avalanche. Great day.”

“Wow, I was only gone a couple of hours.” Steve was out running. Bucky takes him in, basketball and soft ARMY hoodie. It makes him all the more huggable when Bucky decides to go for it.

“What’re you--” Steve tries to say, but Bucky wraps his arms around Steve’s middle and presses his face into the soft fabric of Steve’s shirt.

Hesitantly, Steve lifts his hands and sets them on Bucky’s back. “This okay?” he asks. Bucky nods into his chest. Slowly, his hands rub up and down Bucky’s back, taking their time to travel the space. Bucky doesn’t mind one bit; it makes his day better again.

 

They’re in an antique furniture shop in Dumbo, browsing for Steve’s entertainment, when Bucky sees the sofa. It’s beautiful, a reupholstered piece with nail head trim on the arms and front.

“Steve, isn’t this cool?” Bucky asks. Steve, engrossed in studying a shelf of antique china and probably trying to figure out if Sarah Rogers owned the same brand, takes a moment to turn.

“Yeah, it’s a beaut.”

Bucky sits. “And comfortable. We should get a new sofa.”

Steve pads closer. “We can’t get that one though, that’s not a pull out.”

“Well,” Bucky starts, heart jumping at the prospect of what he is about to say, “I don’t think we will be needing a pull out anymore.”

Steve takes a moment to process. When he realizes what Bucky is suggesting, he quickly sits down on the sofa beside him. “Are you sure, Buck?”

Bucky moves his flesh hand to Steve’s knee, squeezing reassuringly. “Yeah, I think I am.”

 

They don’t get the nailhead sofa, but Steve does spend an inordinate amount of time during his day looking at sofas online. At night, Steve has moved into the bedroom. The first night, they sleep back-to-back, not touching but close enough that Bucky can feel the warmth Steve radiates. It isn’t the best sleep he has ever had, simply because he is afraid that he will move in his sleep, roll over and whack Steve with his metal arm. Or worse, lapse into one of his (now) rare nightmares and scare the shit out of Steve’s sleeping mind.

That is why in the morning, Bucky sleeps in and Steve wakes first. Bucky’s mind is aware that Steve’s left the room, registering the sounds of Steve’s morning routine as he fades in and out of sleep. He doesn’t fully wake until a weight settles onto the bed beside him. He rolls over, wondering, and there is Steve with a tray containing breakfast and tea for Bucky. They are both smiling.

The next night, Bucky lies facing Steve. There are a couple inches between them, no contact, but Bucky is even more aware of Steve’s presence when sleeping like this. It takes him hours to fall asleep, mind whirring and nerves prickling.

In the morning, he wakes first and finds his nose pressed between Steve’s shoulder blades and hands gripping his thin t-shirt. He slowly lets go, careful not to wake Steve, and sits up. Steve rolls over in his sleep and faces Bucky, arms pulled adorably close to his chest and breaths soft. Bucky could get used to this. And he will get used to this.

It’s the next week, after a new sofa has officially been delivered to their apartment and the old sleeper sofa has been put to the curb with a “Free to a Good Home” sign taped to the side, that Bucky makes contact. Steve has been sleeping with his back to Bucky, to avoid his subconscious habit of hugging things to his chest in his sleep. Bucky finally bites the bullet and sidles up behind Steve to spoon him, wrapping arms around his slender waist and fitting the bend of his legs to Steve’s.

“Hey,” Steve whispers into the dark of the room. Bucky can hear the smile in his voice.

“Hey,” Bucky says. Watney meows from his spot at the foot of the bed.

 

It’s a lazy Sunday, windows open (despite the smell) and nowhere to be. Bucky has a new novel, a _New York Times_ bestseller, pressed open before him. Steve is snuggled behind him, tired after leaving for two days on an Avengers mission. He is not at liberty to tell Bucky where he goes the few times he is called in, but Bucky knows it must have been close for the mission to be so short. He wonders what insidious things have happened on their home turf that he doesn’t know about.

His long hair falls in his eyes, nearly as unkempt as the Winter Soldier’s, and he shifts to brush it from his view.

“You need a haircut,” Steve says, voice muffled by Bucky’s back and his tired state.

Bucky just hums, lost in the book. Watney pads into the room and stops to stare expectantly from the floor.

Bucky is startled when he feels fingers in his hair, gently combing before beginning to lightly tug. “What’re you doing?” he asks.

“Braiding,” Steve says, as though it should have been expected. Bucky sits still, only half paying attention to the novel now, as Steve weaves his hair through the pattern from root to end, and fishes one of Bucky’s hair ties from the nightstand to secure it.

“When did you learn how to braid?” Bucky asks as Watney jumps onto the bed. The cat settles between them on Steve’s leg, tucking himself into a non-existent space that he has decided _does_ exist.

“My mom couldn’t do it herself...towards the end,” Steve says. “She taught me while she was in the hospital so I could help.”

They lapse into silence. Watney purrs in his sleep. Steve’s cheek presses back into Bucky, nestling against his bare skin. Neither of them have changed out of their pajamas. The only reason Bucky sleeps shirtless is because Steve’s serum causes him to run warm, his skin the same temperature as Watney’s. He is Bucky’s personal furnace. His gentle breaths tickle Bucky’s skin, a sign he has fallen back asleep. Bucky remains as still as possible as he reads. The hero has just saved the entire spaceship crew from the planet’s native aliens and gotten a kiss from the crew nurse.

 

It’s a Friday evening when they come home from seeing the Avengers at the tower. It’s been months since Bucky has gone there (months since he had to) and, until recently, he had not felt stable enough for such an experience.

“That felt like a test,” Bucky says, flopping onto the sofa. “And now I’m exhausted.”

“A test?”

“Yeah, it’s like I was being assessed. ‘Is he stable?’ ‘Is he safe for Steve?’ They don’t trust me.” Steve picks up Bucky’s feet and sits down on the sofa to then place them in his lap. Watney hops onto the sofa arm beside Steve and paws at his hand, demanding attention.

Steve rests one hand on Bucky’s ankle and the other scratches Watney’s ear as he talks. “Like meeting the parents?”

Bucky laughs. “Yeah, like that.”

“They are the closest thing I’ve got to family these days.”

“What about me?” Bucky asks. This is a question that has been eating at him for a bit now. He doesn’t know what they are, how to label what is between them.

Steve thinks for a moment, mindlessly stroking Watney until it’s too much and he delivers a love bite to Steve’s wrist.

“Little shit,” Steve says fondly as Watney saunters away. He turns to Bucky. “I don’t know, but you’re more than family. You know that right?”

Bucky didn’t. Perhaps he had in the past but the Bucky of this century sure didn’t. “So… are we like... together then?”

Steve has to suppress a laugh. “We are whatever you want to be.” There is a pause. “You’re my one and only.”

Bucky is lost for words. He doesn’t know how to respond, doesn’t know if he has the vocabulary for this. He knows he used to be good with words, used to charm and delight with what slipped easily from between his lips. He’s not like that anymore. Instead, he suddenly does know what to do with his lips.

“Bucky?” Steve questions as Bucky pulls his feet from Steve’s lap and rearranges on the sofa, scooting closer to and facing Steve.

“Let me know if this isn’t okay,” he tells Steve. Then, he reaches out to cradle Steve’s face with his hands and leans in, hesitating just a second when he gets close, before carefully pressing their lips together.

Steve is still, almost too still. Bucky pulls back, concerned, wondering if something is wrong. “This okay?” Bucky asks.

Steve snaps from some sort of trance. “Yes Buck, god yes. I’m sorry, I’m...shocked.”

Bucky tilts his head questioningly.

“I haven’t...I haven’t kissed anyone in seventy years,” Steve explains. “And even if my last kiss wasn’t with you, it was the last one with you that really mattered to me. God, I think about it all the time.”

“You miss this?” Bucky asks, motioning between them.

“Yes,” Steve practically gasps. “And I know we are really good at the communication thing these days, but I also really want to kiss you again right now so…” He reaches out this time to take Bucky’s shoulder to pull him closer again. Bucky goes willingly and Steve presses their lips together, _hard_.

Bucky melds into Steve, bodies closer than ever before, as they move their mouths together. Bucky is surprised by how natural it feels, how his muscles remember the details his mind does not. Subconsciously, despite the serum’s changes, his body knows Steve’s. A wave of relief washes over Bucky. For once, something is easy.

“Buck, Buck wait,” Steve suddenly says, breaking away and reclining his head against the back of the sofa. It puts a narrow few inches between their faces and Bucky searches his eyes.

“What, Stevie?”

Steve smiles at the nickname. “I just want to make sure, now that we are doing...this again, that you know--I have no expectations, and...and you should never do something that you’re not comfortable with. You know what we did back...before the war, we were...pretty intimate and---just, we don’t have to go back to that if you don’t want to, if you’re not comfortable.” Steve finally takes a breath. “Whatever you want, I want it too, no matter how ‘PG’ or whatever, or not, or--”

Bucky opens his mouth to speak and Steve finally stops. “I don’t know right now where we will be, physically, later in time. For now, this,” Bucky leans forwards and gives Steve a peck on the lips, “is fine. And for this moment, I think it’s going to be it. But that can change and we will deal with it all as it comes, okay?”

It feels strange, and almost wrong, for Bucky to be reassuring Steve. It’s a role reversal that Bucky is glad to see capable between them, but is also foreign and strange. The tension that leaves Steve’s shoulders at Bucky’s words solidifies that it was the right thing to do, however. Together, they smile. They’ll keep at it, and they will see where they go, where they end up.

From the floor, Watney meows at them.

 

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Please leave comments or kudos to let me know if you enjoyed! I'm so happy if you made it this far!
> 
> If you loved this story, please consider buying your local starving writer a [coffee on ko-fi!](http://ko-fi.com/slowburntryhard)


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